Monthly Archives: May 2015

After a highly competitive process, Early Career Researcher Tim Zhao has been selected as one of 13 young scientists to attend the prestigious Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting for 2015. The high profile meeting, to be held at Lake Constance in Germany, is interdisciplinary in nature with attendees given the opportunity to to interact and learn from Nobel Laureates (from the fields of physics, physiology, medicine and chemistry). Over 70,000 applicants from around the world applied to attend the event with only 700 young scientists proving successful.

Dr. Jiangbo (Tim) Zhao has been invited to attend ‘Science at the Shine Dome’, the annual celebration of science held at the Academy of Science in Canberra, 26 – 28 May. During the three day program, he has chance to participate in a series of lectures being presented by new Fellows of the Academy, as well as by scientists at the forefront of their fields. The theme of the year is ‘Minerals to medicines: 100 years of X-ray crystallography’. Tim has received a $500 travel grant to assist this trip.

A series of talks were provided by CNBP researchers at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), as part of the the organisation’s ‘Heart Health Friday Seminar’ program on the 15th May 2015.

We would like to formally welcome A/Prof Jaime Garcia-Ruperez from the Universitat Politècnica de València, who is currently visiting the CNBP.

Hosted at CNBP’s University of Adelaide research node, one of Garcia-Ruperez’s first activities has been in providing a talk to the wider Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS).

His talk, “Novel approaches for the development of high-sensitivity, compact and low-cost nanophotonic biosensors based on photonic bandgap structures,” took place on May 14th to an appreciative crowd.

In the talk, Garcia-Ruperez presented the work being carried out at the Nanophotonics Technology Center (NTC) of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV, Spain) – particularly towards the development of high-sensitivity, compact, low-cost and real-time biosensors based on photonic bandgap structures where the use of tunable elements for their interrogation is avoided. The use of these sensing devices for their application in fields like medical diagnosis was also proposed.

CNBP PhD student Wan Aizuddin Wan Razali, has been awarded a travel grant under the Postgraduate Research Fund to the value of $5,000. The grant will be used to attend the Single-Molecule Microscopy and Spectroscopy Faraday Discussion conference in London. He will also visit London’s Imperial College, the University of Jena and the University of Bremen.

The event, held under the auspices of the 2015 United States-Australia Joint Commission Meeting on Science and Technology, looks to enhance strategic scientific dialogue between the two countries as well as promote joint efforts in addressing complex problems facing the world today.

This year’s theme was ‘Enabling Technologies’ with Prof Piper giving two well received talks – ‘Supporting Structures for Australian Discovery Research’ and ‘Time-coded Luminescent Nanoparticles for High Contrast Detection of Specific (sub) Cellular Targets’.

ABSTRACT: In the past decades, great efforts have been developed for neurobiologists and neurologists to restore nervous system functions. Recently much attention has been paid to electrical stimulation (ES) of the nervous system as a potential way to repair it. Various conductive biocompatible materials with good electrical conductivity, biocompatibility, and long-term ES or electrical stability have been developed as the substrates for ES. In this review, we summarized different types of materials developed in the purpose for ES of nervous system, including conducting polymers, carbon nanomaterials and composites from conducting polymer/carbon nanomaterials. The present review will give our perspective on the future research directions for further investigation on development of ES particularly on the nerve system.

CNBP Research Fellow Denitza Denkova, has given an invited seminar talk at the Nonlinear Physics Centre, part of the Australian National University (ANU), located in Canberra. The seminar focused on her PhD research, ‘Optical characterization of plasmonic nanostructures – imaging of the magnetic field of light’. Also discussed were her current research activities on super resolution, as well as potential collaboration possibilities. Denkova was also taken on a tour of the Centre’s lab facilities as part of a well received visit.

CNBP Investigator, Associate Professor Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem has been granted a Women’s Research Excellence Award by the University of Adelaide, for her outstanding achievements as a mid-career researcher in the field of optical glasses and fibres.

The award, valued at $5000, celebrates International Women’s Day and is determined by the University Vice-Chancellor and President, in partnership with the Gender, Equity and Diversity Committee. Award money can be spent on any activity that supports the winner’s research.